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Although the Brontes have long fascinated readers of fiction and biography, their poetry was all too little known until this pioneering selection by Stevie Davies, the novelist and critic. Charlotte (1816-1855) is certainly a competent poet, and Anne (1820-1849) developed a distinctive voice, while Emily (1818-1848) is one of the great women poets in English. All three sisters, as Stevie Davies remarks in her introduction, were Romantic in inspiration, writing poetry of passionate personal feeling and of pure imagination. They share certain themes-liberty, loneliness, love-and harbor the myth of a lost paradise. Read together with their novels, the poems movingly elucidate the ideas around which the narratives revolve. And they surprise us out of our conventional notions of the sisters' personalities: Emily's rebelliousness, for example, is counterbalanced here by great tenderness. This selection of over seventy poems gives an idea of the variety of thought and feeling within eachauthor's work, and of the way in which the poems of these three remarkable writers parallel and reflect each other.

Introduction

The Brontes as Poets

9

(3)

Charlotte Bronte

12

(5)

Emily Jane Bronte

17

(6)

Anne Bronte

23

(8)

Poems

Charlotte Bronte

Lines Addressed to `The Tower of All Nations'

31

(1)

Written upon the Occasion of the Dinner Given to the Literati of the Glasstown

31

(1)

Home-Sickness

32

(1)

from Retrospection

33

(2)

The Wounded Stag

35

(1)

`Turn not now for comfort here'

36

(1)

`He could not sleep! - the couch of war'

36

(1)

The Teacher's Monologue

37

(3)

Diving

40

(1)

Gods of the Old Mythology

41

(2)

Parting

43

(1)

Preference

44

(2)

Morning

46

(1)

Master and Pupil

47

(5)

Reason

52

(1)

`He saw my heart's woe, discovered my soul's anguish'

53

(2)

On the Death of Emily Jane Bronte

55

(1)

On the Death of Anne Bronte

55

(4)

Poems

Emily Jane Bronte

`High waving heather, 'neath stormy blasts bending'

59

(1)

`All day I've toiled, but not with pain'

59

(1)

`I am the only being whose doom'

60

(1)

`Only some spires of bright green grass'

61

(1)

`Now trust a heart that trusts in you'

61

(1)

A. G. A. (`Sleep brings no joy to me')

62

(1)

`I'll come when thou art saddest'

63

(1)

I'm happiest when most away'

63

(1)

Song (`King Julius left the south country')

64

(1)

`And now the house-dog stretched once more'

64

(2)

`Shed no tears o'er that tomb'

66

(1)

A. A. A. (`Sleep not, dream not; this bright day')

67

(1)

Song (`O between distress and pleasure')

68

(1)

`There was a time when my cheek burned'

69

(1)

```Well, some may hate, and some may scorn'''

69

(1)

`It is too late to call thee now'

70

(1)

`Riches I hold in light esteem'

71

(1)

`Shall Earth no more inspire thee'

71

(1)

`Aye, there it is! It wakes to-night'

72

(1)

How Clear She Shines!

73

(1)

`In the earth, the earth, thou shalt be laid'

74

(1)

A. G. A. to A. S. (`This summer wind, with thee and me')

75

(1)

`Come, walk with me'

76

(1)

To Imagination

77

(1)

`O thy bright eyes must answer now'

78

(2)

The Philosopher's Conclusion

80

(2)

R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida (`Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!')